Flea Mail - Sept 13, 2016

first night of back to back gigs in helsinki, my dear fins you were beautiful, i bow deeply to you, a giant theatrical, graceful bow of music, to serve you, to please you, to uplift you, to earn my keep in your fair northern land. ahh the water is so cleeeeean here i feel it cleansing away the dust of my life, the grime and filth of a thousand airports and hotels, the psychic grease of a thousand stupid photographs taken by maggot like creatures who were i dead would feast on the rotten superiority of their living state. oh you who approach me in the street, years before you open your mouth i know what you will say, the predictability of it all a smoggy malaise washed away by an ice cold Finnish shower of love.

played misty for myself today in the sanctity of my room, my pocket trumpet, it’s hard cold metal buzzing warmly on my lips while i reach for the heights that arthur blythe reached in his version of misty on his record ‘blythe spirit’ damnit i love that track i listened to it so much in the early eighties, that record so good, the track ‘strike up the band’ always bouncing around in my skull and highlighting the most joyful part of my teenage years. soaring wind and funky ass sousaphones to float my boat all the way around the turbulent waters of this fucking world.

it’s the shame that i would ever stiffen up when i play music but i did that time i played with ornette and his crew, in the rehearsal, when i soloed i stiffened up like a rookie, but i learned my lesson i won’t do it again no matter how intense of a dude david murray is i am intense too and i can blow. let go and blow made one day some of us will learn to dress as well as ornette i know i aspire to, i will start to iron my jeans when i get home.